Lando Norris on McLaren’s nightmare at F1 Bahrain Grand Prix: “Mechanics had a lot of pit stop practice”
The McLaren driver encountered issues from Lap 1 of the 2023 season-opener, eventually pitting five times before ꦚhis car was finally retired on its 🌃sixth stop.
His teammate 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Oscar Piastri, on his F1 debut, became the first driver of💧 the new season to retire with separate pr🍰oblems.
“I think t𝔍he ൲best thing is the mechanics did a lot of pit stop practices,” Norris said. “That’s the biggest positive.
“I think the pace was ok-ish a🀅nd we could have scored a🃏 point today at least so it’s a shame we had the problems we did.
“Good start, good launch, made up a few positions and then we had p🌜roblems from Turn 1 basically – pn🐟eumatic problems and various other issues.
“That just brought out us of the race more and more, we had to pit every ten laps and that 🍬was it.”
Team principal Andrea Stella explained: "There was a pneumatic pressure leak on Lando's car. We discov꧟ered this leak relatively soon in the race.
"Then wꦬe knew that it was possible only to do 10, 11 laps eac꧑h time before having to refill.
"🍰We decided to stay in the race, we decided to try and stay at least within ꦦone lap from the leader within the last 10 laps.
"Then if there's a safety💯 car, try and see if there was an opportunity. We did six stops."
Piastri was forced to r🍨etire when an attempt to fit a 📖new steering wheel, to solve an electrical problem, failed.
Stella said: "The electronic damage wa📖s further down the line around the steering column. So, the steering wheel wasn't the problem. It was a problem with the harness probably. We are investigati꧑ng. Not fixable in a short time."
McLaren have experienced a horrible start to 2023 - Norris was spotted punching ♉a wall in frustration during preseason testing in ꩵBahrain.
CEO Zak Brown had already admitted that the ca😼r’s development was behind schedule.
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from Ameri🀅can sports, to football, to F1.
